


the weight grew golden

by uraa



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cultural Identity, Gen, Japanese Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 07:24:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11618772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uraa/pseuds/uraa
Summary: Through the window, Takashi saw a head of unruly black hair, golden skin and soft dark eyes.Oh,he thought. Even from a distance, he could tell.





	the weight grew golden

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2017 voltron gen mini bang. huge thanks to my partner beth (her-paintstrokes) for her beautiful art!!!!
> 
> this is a pretty personal fic and was based on a lot of real life experiences, so before any of u yell at me know that im a japanese american kid too :>

 

 

He comes to him in what Takashi thinks can only really be described as a thunderstorm—a red jacket worn enough at the elbows that it’s soft as cotton, too-long black hair that turns brown-ochre in the sun, dark eyes in which Takashi sometimes thinks he sees a sheen of purple, like a spark of electricity—all vivid, white lines splitting down a stormy sky, burning green-purple into his retinas. He’s a storm in the form of a knock on the door one day as Takashi’s sitting in his room in the afternoon warmth, staring at his oscillating ceiling fan and at the white wall behind it.

All in a rush, like the first moment of rain: “Do you want to play basketball?”

Takashi glances at the old hoop in the street, at the sun pounding down on the asphalt. The temperature finally broke ninety-five today and outside it looks stifling with heat. Keith doesn’t have a ball in hand and his sneakers look barely used, but he has a kind of world-worn softness to his eyes, like the velvety edges of a well-loved picture kept in a pocket for too long. His gaze is direct and steady. It’s amazing, Takashi thinks, how he can look apprehensive and so immovable at the same time.

He’s never asked Takashi to play basketball before.

“I’m not very good at basketball,” he says, “but sure. Let me get my shoes on.”

 

… 

 

 

Keith arrived during the hottest week ever recorded in Virginia.

They were in what Takashi hoped was the peak of a long, stifling heat wave. The power had been out in their neighborhood for the past two days, and sitting around trying to breathe through the heat was becoming unbearable. He’d gone over to the Holt’s for the afternoon—their family was the only one on the block that had a small generator to power their box fan. But Katie was sprawled out in front of it and refused to move, so he and Matt were out on the Holt’s front porch, rationing their glasses of lemonade and hoping to catch the tail end of a breeze. 

“It’s so hot,” whined Matt. He pressed his glass to his forehead, futilely, since it was about the same temperature as everything else outside. 

They’d said it so many times that Takashi didn’t bother to respond. He fanned himself with a newspaper and tipped his head back to watch the shadows of the leaves across the front of the house. It was so hard to even think in the heat. Everything was thick and slow; little details that he would normally ignore seemed to drag past him—the texture of the wooden railing of the porch, the nails coming up from the slats, the ridge on the edge of his glass.

“Is Katie done with the fan yet?” Matt said, partly to himself, partly hoping that his sister would hear through the screen door and take the hint. 

“No,” Katie called. And then, her voice distorted through the fan, “it’s mi-i-i-i-ine.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Not if we take it,” he muttered. “Takashi, you come in from behind, I—”

“Hey,” Takashi interrupted. He pointed with his chin. “Look.”

Across the street, a boy was getting out of the Lawson’s blue Sedan. He was small, maybe about fourteen, with a mop of overgrown pitch black hair.

“Oh,” said Matt, “new neighbor.” The usual excitement that would back the words was dimmed by the heat. 

“New neighbor,” Takashi echoed, and then Matt was yelling at Katie that she needed to give up the fan and they were going inside and tickling it from her and sharing too much body heat on the living room floor.

It was so hot, so impossible to do anything but lie down and breathe. He didn’t think about Keith for a while.

 

…

 

Takashi has stars on his bedroom ceiling. Past the blur of his humming ceiling fan, he can make out the raised green-tan shapes by the light of his laptop screen. They lost their glow years ago, but sometimes the glitter on their surfaces still catches the light, just like the light from dead stars, thousands of years in travel, still reaches Earth.

He blinks the brightness of the screen out of his eyes to try and see them better. They look so indistinct in the dark, so different from the high-definition flight simulations of the Garrison it’s almost laughable. And even the pale, grainy stars and planets in his eight-inch telescope had been round. Where had the traditional five-pointed star even come from?

He had been a kid when the stars were put up, one who had apparently loved them enough to stick them all over his bedroom. That love for them had been enough to take him all the way to the top school for space exploration in the nation.  He was lost in them so much of the time at school, surrounded by the pinpricks of light in the screens of the simulation cockpit, as numbers in his astronomy textbook, as concepts and distances and theories. Everyone who wants to go to space is surrounded in their own kind of it—living in a sort of half-dream world, one eye on their homework and the other still staring at the fuzzy image of Jupiter in the lens of their backyard telescope, still eight years old and awash with wonder, with the realization that they were seeing a real, tangible planet millions of miles away from them. Everyone has their story, their first night stargazing behind their house with fireflies blinking around their feet, squinting up to see the tiny bright dots behind the light pollution. But not everyone will be among them someday.

He rubs a hand over his eyes and texts Matt back. 

> no i think the briefing is the 26

> 24?

> next thursday

The reply comes quickly. 

> whatever im just enjoying being out of school 

> i’ll think about it later

He checks the time, 2:24 am.

> yeah me too

Takashi just happens to be luckier than most. 

 

…

 

He met Keith at a neighborhood dinner party of all places, sitting in the Jones’s backyard on the edge of the patio, close enough to the grill to smell the smoke. It was hot and oppressively humid that evening; the smell of citronella from his bug spray was persistent. Most of the other neighborhood kids, including Matt, had opted out of going, but Takashi didn’t really have anything better to do that night. He was crunching through a pile of salad on his paper plate when he heard the conversation drift in through the open kitchen window. 

“Katherine!” he heard his mother exclaim, “so good to see you. Oh, and you must be Keith.” There was something warm about the way she said the word, something special, a crinkling of the corners of her eyes. 

“This is Mrs. Shirogane,” said Mrs. Lawson. 

Through the window, Takashi saw a head of unruly black hair, golden skin and soft dark eyes. 

_Oh_ , he thought. Even from a distance, he could tell. 

“Hi, Keith,” said his mother.

“Hi,” said Keith.

 

...

 

 

Takashi realizes, somewhat belatedly, that he’s fallen in love with summer.

A mid-afternoon storm comes one day when he’s sitting on the Holt’s front porch with Matt, crunching through blue popsicles and sticking out their arms to feel the rain. The air is thick with the smell of hot-wet pavement and upturned earth from Colleen’s garden, and thunder rolls long and low in the distance. Trees are roiling in the wind, the noise of them drowned out by the rain, their leaves vivid and shiny with water. Summer storms are such an engulfing experience. Takashi wonders why he’s never realized how much he loves them before.

“I love summer,” he says to Matt. For some reason he has to push to get the words out. He feels like he hasn’t said them quite right.

Matt makes a face. “Too hot,” he says around a mouthful of popsicle. “My house didn’t have air conditioning for the first ten years of my life. I think it traumatized me.”

Takashi laughs. “But it’s like… the opposite of winter.” Matt gives him a deadpan look, so he rolls his eyes and continues, the empty feeling ebbing with every word: “You don’t have to wrap yourself in protection just to go outside. It’s like the earth has finally stopped deciding to kill you.”

“Okay, but for all your local sweat gremlins,” Matt gestures to himself and his house, “it’s not really the most ideal time. I can’t wear gray outside anymore.”

“Not the most ideal time for you,” Takashi relents, laughing. There’s a pause. “Storms are pretty nice, though.”

Matt watches the puddles forming on the driveway and his expression folds, just a little. “Yeah.”

“Think they have rain on Kerberos?”

Matt turns to him with an incredulous look. “Kerberos the ice planet? Didn’t you write your midterm paper on Kerberos?”

“I’m just kidding,” Takashi says with a smile. “Maybe they’ll have snow. I kind of like rain better, though.”

They both turn their gaze back out to the curtains of water beyond the porch railing. “Me too,” says Matt.

 

…

 

They were offering fifteen dollars an hour, and it was Keith, so who was Takashi to say no?

“He could use some support in English and Chemistry,” Mrs. Lawson had told him. “You just graduated from the Garrison, right? Would you be available for tutoring this summer?” Takashi had nodded his consent, although he wasn’t even sure he had kept his textbooks from sophomore year.

He eventually found his box of textbooks and worksheets buried under a substantial layer of sweet-smelling dust in his attic closet. He cleaned the living room and bought some snacks, and talked himself into what he hoped was a supportive, encouraging teacher mindset. He looked up tutorials online. He read the blog of a student teacher. And Keith knocked on the door around two the next Saturday, and he found himself completely, desperately unprepared.

“Hey,” he said as he opened the door. “Um. Come in.” 

“Thanks,” said Keith, and slipped his shoes off at the door without being prompted. His dark, fluffy hair fell into his eyes as he bent over, and silently Takashi thought he should get a haircut. Did Mrs. Lawson not think so too?

“So, English and Chem, right?” he asked as he lead Keith to the table he set up by the window. “Are the classes hard at your school?”

“Well, I’m transferring to the Garrison next year,” Keith muttered downwards. “I passed the entrance exam. So.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Lawson’s request for him to tutor suddenly made more sense. “Hey, that’s really cool. I just graduated from the Garrison.”

“Yeah,” said Keith, “I know.”

Takashi blinked. “Great. Well, I can’t say I remember exactly what freshman year topics were, but you keep using the stuff you learn in later classes, so I think I can help you out. You okay with me as your tutor?”

Keith looked up from the table, a funny look on his face. “Yeah. I’m here.” There was a very heavily implied _so, obviously_ after the sentence.

Takashi blinked again and inexplicably found himself fighting a smile. “You want to start on Chem first?”

“Sure.”

“What were you struggling with specifically last year?”

“Stoichiometry.”

“No problem.” Takashi pulled out a worksheet he had printed off online and they dissected the problems for an hour, Keith’s pencil scratching the paper like he was warding away something that was trying to kill him. From what Takashi could see of his face, bent over the page, Keith felt like he was trying to kill stoichiometry, too.

“Sig figs,” Takashi reminded him as they reached the bottom problem, and he heard Keith suppress a groan as he erased the numbers of his answer. “It’s only two, actually, since thirty-five grams is the— so round up, and then you have to use scientific notation—“

Keith erased his answer again, scribbled in the 4.0 x 10^1, and sat back. “Okay.”

Takashi flipped the page and saw Keith’s face sag as he took in the rows of problems on the back of the page. “Let’s just do these two,” he said, circling them. “Try them on your own.”

Keith ran a hand through his hair in exasperation but worked as diligently as he could, circling his two answers in record time. His expression was hopeful, even proud.

Takashi scanned his work and wished he didn’t have to tell him. “Sig figs for seven.”

Keith’s forehead hit the table with a dull thump. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuckkkk.”

“It’s fine,” said Takashi, gathering all the optimism he could muster. “Stoichiometry took me a while too. But you’re coming back tomorrow, right?”

Takashi had never tutored before, but he was pretty sure your student wasn’t supposed to sound like they were dying when they said ‘right’ back.

 

…

 

The ice cream parlor smells like waffle cones and air conditioning, cold enough that Takashi shivers as they walk in. 

“Thank god,” says Katie as she plops into a vinyl chair, flapping the bottom of her tank top. “I’m hot as fuck.”

“Katie, language,” Matt scolds halfheartedly, as he collapses into the chair beside her. He presses his forehead to the cool marble tabletop.

“Katie, language,” Katie echoes mockingly. “I’m not a kid, get used to it.”

“Oh, because thirteen is so grown up.”

“Shut up.”

“I can’t believe you’re a teenager now. Seventh grade is so mature! Can’t believe you’re almost a real life adult—”

“Shut up, Matt.”

Matt shrugs. “You brought it on yourself.”

Keith is, hilariously, in a hoodie and jeans, leaning against the wall like he thinks it makes him look cool. He thunks his head back against the plaster, and Takashi startles, looking over at him. “I forgot my wallet,” he says, the despondency conveyed even though his expression barely changes. “Takashi, can I pay you back—“

“I gotchu,” says Matt, voice muffled by the table. “Takashi and my treat to our little siblings.”

Keith almost says something, but looks away at the last second. Takashi thinks he catches a smile.

He approaches the counter. “Can I get two vanilla, one peanut butter, one oreo? In a bowl.” He watches the ice cream rolling into the scooper, the worker carefully avoiding the crystals on the edges of the tubs. Unwanted, a thought flashes through his mind—he’s going to be seeing a whole lot of ice really soon, so why is he eating ice now?

_It’s summer,_ he tells himself. _Ice cream in the summer is natural._

The launch is in a few days, and there’s a heaviness that’s been hanging in his chest since he texted Matt about the briefing a few days ago.  Maybe it’s nerves. Space is amazing—space is pretty much all he’s ever wanted to go, it’s all he’s ever wanted to do since he was little. He loves space so much that sometimes he thinks his heart is going to stop from all the fascination and wonder and curiosity he feels. He loves space. He loves space. He doesn’t know how he could be feeling more apprehension than excitement about finally being up there.

“Ten fifty-seven,” says the cashier, and Takashi focuses on counting out change instead.

He feels the ice of the glass bowl on his hands as he carries it to the table and both knows and can’t comprehend how much colder deep space is. “Two vanilla, one peanut butter, one oreo,” he says as he sets it down. “Served about two hundred seventy degrees warmer than where Matt and I are gonna be on Wednesday.”

Keith and Katie laugh, but Matt gives him a look, half knowing and half sympathetic, and digs his spoon into his scoop of vanilla.

“Ew, Keith, get your Oreo out of my scoop,” says Katie, pushing away the melting ice cream with the back of her spoon.

“Not my fault they’re next to each other,” Keith retorts. “Yours is contaminating mine anyway.”

Takashi and Matt’s scoops are melting together too, but none of them suggest they use separate bowls next time. It’s an unspoken Holt family tradition to share ice cream and it’s bled over to Keith and Takashi too. He does his best to scoop up his peanut butter contaminated ice cream with good humor.

“Remember when we used to eat that overpriced freeze dried ice cream all the time?” Matt asks him.

“From the space museum,” says Takashi. “I can’t believe we thought it was better than the real thing.”

“I dunno, I still stand by that,” says Matt. “At least we don’t have to pay for it this time.”

Takashi laughs in the sort of half-forced way he finds himself doing so often. “Yeah. Could even say we’re getting paid _to_ eat it.”

There’s a pause. Takashi listens to the humming of the freezers in the background. “Two hundred seventy degrees warmer,” Matt mutters, so low that only Takashi really catches what he says. “Guess we should be glad the shuttle has insulation.”

“It’s kinda cold in space, yeah.”

Matt laughs. “Kinda cold. Brisk. Just a little nippy.” But the smile softens on his face and he looks down at the bowl. “Big difference from Virginia.”

Again the unspoken feeling goes between them. Takashi looks away.

 

…

 

“Close.” Takashi pointed out a few numbers in the word problem. “You have to do all the steps individually, then add up the answers.”

Keith stared at the page for a few seconds before he pushed his chair back abruptly. “I’m gonna take a break.”

They had been at it for a few hours by then, and Takashi did have to admit, it was probably time for a break. Keith had been getting more and more careless as time went on, more and more frustrated. It was like watching an storm build, aching in his stomach. He wanted Keith to succeed so badly— there was something protective in the way he wanted Keith to get better, to be proud of himself, to conquer the things that were so hard for him.

He watched Keith stalk over to the base of the basketball hoop outside and hunch on the hot pavement. His shoulders were drawn up defensively, the sun burning down onto his hair. He couldn’t have been comfortable in the weather—no one could.

Takashi grabbed two bottles of lemonade from the fridge and a package of rice crackers, and went outside to brave the heat with him.

“Hey,” he said as he sat down. He held out a bottle, burning icy against his fingers. “You want one?”

“Sure,” said Keith, even more quiet than usual. He popped open the bottle and took a drink without comment.

“I have rice crackers too,” said Takashi, offering a bag. “I don’t know if you like them, but it’s kind of all we had. Sorry.”

“Thanks,” was all Keith said as he took a handful. They crunched through the shoyu and seaweed together noisily until Keith gave him a strange look. “You said these were rice crackers?”

“Yeah. Something wrong with them?”

“They taste really familiar.”

“Oh. You’ve had them before?”

“I think I had them when I was little.” Keith took another handful contemplatively. “My dad would get them all the time.”

“Is…your dad Japanese by any chance?” Takashi tried not to let the excitement show through his voice. 

Keith blinked at him like he’d missed something obvious. “I mean, yeah. My original last name is Kogane. You didn’t know?”

If Takashi would describe any moment in his life as being the mental equivalent of being hit by an anvil of happiness, that was it. There was a tiny voice in his head chanting _Japanese kid, Japanese kid, Japanese kid_ over and over. 

“Seriously?” he said. “Me too! I’ve literally never met— that’s so cool. That’s awesome, man. That’s great.” 

Keith gave him a little pressed-down smile that Takashi’s had come to realize meant he was trying not to laugh. “What?” Takashi said. “Oh, sorry, I just— not a lot of Asians around here, I guess you’ve noticed; I don’t think I’ve ever met another Japanese kid before—“

“No,” said Keith, “I mean, me too. I used to live in rural Texas, so.”

“Really.” Takashi tried to imagine Keith in cowboy boots and a wide-brimmed hat and failed. “With a farm and everything?”

Keith shrugged. “Just some chickens and a dog and not really anyone else around. So I mean— I feel you. And I mean, I didn’t have a whole lot of Japanese food growing up.”

“The crackers, though.” Takashi handed him another handful. “Arare.”

“That’s the word.” Keith’s eyes flew open. “Yeah. Arare.” His tongue tripped a little over the r’s, but he smiled, finally a light, genuine smile. “I had those.” 

Takashi looked down at the crackers in his hand, sticky and glistening. He looked up. “Keith, have you been to the Asian market downtown?”

“No.” Keith swiped at a bead of sweat rolling down his temple, his black hair shimmering in the afternoon sun. “Why?”

Takashi popped the rest of the crackers into his mouth and stood, wiping his hands on his pants. “Want to take a ride?”

 

…

 

“We’re literally doing every stereotypical summer activity,” Katie complains as they walk onto pool deck. “You guys don’t want to build a computer or something? Matt was so into that a month ago. You know, no sun, no sweat, no humidity. 

“Well, yeah,” says Matt, squinting in the sun. “That was before my launch was in two days. Put on sunscreen.” He shoves the bottle into Katie’s hands—she’s already wilting in the heat. 

They find a collection of pool chairs and strip to their swimsuits. The concrete is hot against Takashi’s bare feet as he hops his way to the edge of the pool and climbs down the ladder, but the water feels good and cold as he backs in, contrasting with the warmth of the handles underneath his hands.

“Boring!” Keith shouts, shoving Takashi backwards off the ladder and throwing himself into the water. Takashi half-laughs and half-chokes, regaining his balance and getting a face full of chlorine as Keith’s splash washes over him.

“Yeah, boring, Takashi,” says Matt, and cannonballs into the water behind Keith. He comes to the surface grinning, wiping water from his face. “This is like our last time swimming in a year, you don’t want to have some fun?”

“I was going to have fun,” Takashi protests mildly, “I was just getting into the water like a normal human being—“ He splutters as a splash hits him, face full of pool water again. “Keith.”

Keith shrugs, but his smile belies his intentions. “Sorry. It was an accident.”

“Sure it was.” Katie drops into the pool beside them, tilting her chin up so her face isn’t underwater. “Just like pushing Takashi into the pool was an accident.”

Keith shoves her, maybe harder than he intended, since she loses her balance and falls under the water with a squeak. There’s a moment of silence, and Takashi and him glance at each other as she comes to the surface, hair dripping, Keith bracing himself for payback.

“Sorry—“ he begins.

“You’re so fucking dead, Kogane,” she says, and tackles him. 

They go down in a flurry of yelling and splashing, slopping water up over the pool’s edge. Matt moves to break them up when the lifeguard and some sunbathers start looking their way, his big-brother expression on but with amusement in his eyes. Takashi’s about to join him when a flailing arm glances off Matt’s jaw—Matt yells a little in surprise and reels back, Katie and Keith not seeming to notice. He rubs at his chin.

“That could be considered a punishable offense,” he says to Takashi, on the other side of the whirling Keith-Katie ball of water and limbs. 

Takashi nods. “It could.”

“As my ally you would be obligated to join me in battle.”

“I would.”

They stare at each other for a second before Matt grins. “What the heck. It’s the last swim of the summer. Gotta live while you can.”

He charges into the flurry of splashing, and after a moment, Takashi follows. It’s hard to breathe through the chaos of water and slippery bodies, but. What the heck. He loves swimming. He loves these kids. He loves Earth.

 

… 

 

“You’re a biker?”

Takashi huffed out a surprised laugh. “Well, I don’t know if I’m a biker. But I have a bike, yeah.”

Keith stood there for a few seconds, his eyes moving across the black metal and leather, eating up the sight. “We’re taking this?”

“As long as you’re comfortable with it, sure,” said Takashi. “Ever ridden one before?” Keith shook his head. “Great, you’re in for a surprise.” He dug through the back of the garage until he found his spare helmet, wiping the dust off the top of it with the hem of his shirt. “Sorry it’s a little gross,” he said, “but Matt used it not that long ago so I don’t think it’ll be that bad.”

Keith gave him a look. “Matt sweats a lot.” 

Takashi winced and handed him an disinfecting wipe from a nearby shelf. As Keith wiped the helmet down, he noticed how he handled it with a kind of quiet reverence—not outright, but there was respect in the way he turned it over in his hands. 

He was careful but sure as he settled behind Takashi on the seat, knowing where to put his feet and where to grip. Even if he said he’d never done this before, Takashi would guess that he had had enough experience seeing people on bikes to know what to do.

“Ready?” Takashi asked, and started the engine.

They took surface streets to the Asian market, nothing like a highway or country road, but it would still be normal to be a little tense on your first ride. Takashi looked over his shoulder a few times and didn’t see any nervousness on Keith’s face at all. His eyes were lit up as he watched the houses speeding past them, and his lips were parted in a small half-smile. They didn’t talk over the wind as they rode, but as soon as Takashi cut the engine in the parking lot of the supermarket, he heard a bubbling laugh pushing its way out of Keith. 

“That was awesome,” Keith said, hopping off and looking around on shaky legs. “I’ve never— I mean, that was really cool. I didn’t know you could do that.”

“What, ride a motorcycle?” Takashi took off his helmet, smiling. “Is my cool factor up a point now?”

“You never had a cool factor at all,” said Keith, without missing a beat. 

There was a pregnant moment before Takashi burst into laughter, shaking his head. “Wow. Let’s go, kiddo.”

“Kiddo? I’m like, three years younger than you.”

“I’m eighteen so I’m technically an adult. Let’s go, kiddo.”

Keith scowled, but it was good natured. Takashi wondered how the air between them had changed so fast. Was it the Japanese American thing? Was it the bike? Had it always been there?

They walked into the air conditioning of the supermarket and he did his best to shrug it off. It smelled weird inside, like it always did, a combination of produce and fish and something else that was impossible to describe. He glanced back at Keith, looking curiously at pastel pudding packages stacked by the entrance and the characters stamped over their plastic. 

“What does it say?” Keith asked.

Takashi knelt down, squinting. “Dunno, it’s in Chinese. You want puddings?”

“Are they good?”

“Let’s find out,” said Takashi, on impulse, and dumped the package in the basket.

“Did you bring me here just to buy food?” 

“What does it look like?” says Takashi. “I grew up with these things, I figured I could share the experience with another kid like me.”

“I’m fifteen.”

“Yeah, not grown up yet,” said Takashi. “You still have time. You still have all the snacks in the world to buy.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Then let’s buy them.”

 

…

 

Space darkness looks sharp, while Earth darkness looks soft. Space is hard like obsidian, clear around the stars and planets, but Earth darkness has the softness of shadows, of the moon and streetlights, the fuzzy outlines of a bedroom on the corner of Green and Mangum. Earth has the softness of a steady human breath beside him and the rustle of covers instead of the whir of machinery that’s keeping him alive.

Earth also has beds. Takashi really loves lying in bed. Beds are great. He’s gonna miss normal beds.

“You ever think about the types of dark?” he asks across the space between his air mattress and Matt’s bed.

Matt huffs out a laugh and rolls over. “Dude, what?”

“Like soft dark versus hard dark.”

Matt pauses. “Earth dark versus space dark?”

Takashi can’t help but smile—trust Matt to know exactly what he was thinking. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, now that you say it,” says Matt. “Why? Launch Wednesday?”

“Yeah,” says Takashi again. “I’m sort of— I don’t know. I’m gonna miss Earth. Right?”

“Well, duh,” says Matt, “We’re gonna be up there for a year. I mean, I’ll have my dad, but Katie and my mom— and normal food, and weather, and stuff like that.”

“You ever get homesick? Already?”

Matt turns his head, and in the dark Takashi imagines that he’s looking over. “Yeah, I feel that. Why?”

“I don’t know.” Takashi resists the urge to roll over and instead turns his head to look out the window, at the foggy light from the streetlamp coming in to the room. “ It’s kind of stupid, right? Like, we’ve literally been wanting this our whole lives. This is the dream.”

“This is the dream,” Matt repeats, laughing. “Sure. Not like there’s anything wrong with missing Earth, though.”

“Not missing Earth,” says Takashi. He swallows, feeling unsure and ungrateful and all the un-’s he’s ever learned in his life. “ I mean missing Earth, yeah. But more like not wanting to go.”

“Dude.” Matt props his head up on his hand. “It’s not too late to back out.”

“No,” says Takashi quickly. “No, I’m going. It’s just. Earth has so many things.”

“Yeah, lots of things.”

Takashi rolls his eyes. “Good things. Stuff I don’t want to leave.”

“No, me too,” says Matt. “But I don’t know if that’s a bad thing, you know? It’d be kinda sad if all you wanted to do was get away from Earth. At least we have good things in our life here that we don’t want to leave.”

“But space is kind of all I ever wanted to do. Why do I suddenly— I don’t know. Sorry. I can stop talking about this.”

“It’s cool,” says Matt. “I feel like that too. I mean, space is awesome, and I’m definitely going up there and enjoying it, but. I guess it’s a little bittersweet.”

“Bittersweet,” says Takashi, closing his eyes and feeling the sinking of sleep. “That’s the word.”

What were the chances, honestly, of him and Matt growing up down the street from each other in the same quiet Virginia neighborhood. Matt, a prodigy from childhood, who pushes his glasses up his nose and tucks his chin in and flies through page after page of calculations and theory with the kind of single-minded ease that comes from being born for space. Matt, who had built a functioning computer with his sister the day after he turned thirteen.Choosing him from the pool of juniors and seniors as the resident scientist and technician was practically a no-brainer. He couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather spend a year floating around in a big black vacuum with, anyone else who knows him as well.

Himself, though. Takashi’s not so sure. He’s not sure he wants to be sure.

 

…

 

Navigating the stairs up to his room with arms overflowing with snacks wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but Takashi figured he’d manage, even as he trailed packages of crackers and cookies. It was afternoon and a Saturday and he and Keith were taking an extended break from studying, flopping out on his bedroom floor and soaking up the light.

He pushed open the door with his hip and eased into the room. The armful of snacks crinkled as Takashi dumped it onto the bed. “Round two of Japanese snacks for the coolest Japanese American kid I know.” He paused, and smiled. “Well, the only Japanese American kid I know.”

“Yeah.” Somehow there wasn’t as much excitement in his voice as Takashi would have liked. “I mean. Not like I’m really Japanese, but.”

Takashi paused. “Well, yeah, you’re Japanese American. Like me? We’re not really either, right?”

“I guess.” Keith shoved a cookie into his mouth and chewed doggedly. “Yeah.”

“You don’t sound that confident.”

“I am,” said Keith around the cookie. “I mean. Right? Yeah.”

“Isn’t your dad Japanese? So you’re Japanese American.” Takashi didn’t know why he couldn’t let this go. Keith was Japanese American. Like him.

“But it’s not like my dad was around for very long,” said Keith. “I mean, I look Asian. But it’s not like my dad did anything for me.”

“But you’re Japanese American.”

“You keep saying that!" said Keith, suddenly, his hand tightening around the plastic cookie wrapper. “But I don’t feel like I am. You know all these things, about the food, and the language, and how you have to bring gifts to people when you visit and you can use chopsticks and all that. You’re Japanese like that. I don’t know shit.”

There was silence in the room except for the blowing of the air conditioning. Takashi took a breath, feeling hurt and worry so tender it was almost sweet curling in his stomach. “Okay, fair.”

Keith chewed on his lip. “Yeah.”

He almost wanted to hug him but he wasn’t not quite sure how Keith would react. He wanted to comfort—wanted to become all the acceptance and warmth in the world to envelop him in. “Doesn’t have to be like that, though.”

“What?” Keith stared at his legs, folded on the floor. 

“I mean I can teach you.”

“You’ve taught me enough,” said Keith. “This isn’t like chemistry. You can’t just— it’s too late for me.”

“Too late? It’s never too late.”

“But I don’t just— you can’t just _teach_ me to be a certain ethnicity.”

“Yeah, I can’t,” said Takashi, “because you already are. You’re literally Japanese American. You just don’t think so.”

“I know I’m physically Japanese,” said Keith, “just not— you know what I mean. I’m not one of you.”

Takashi held up a package of rice crackers. “You know what these are, right?”

“Arare,” said Keith, slowly. He sucked his teeth. “I can’t even say it right. This is stupid. Pass me the soy sauce.” 

“Soy sauce is shoyu.” Keith looked away stubbornly, his fluffy hair falling over his eyes. “Omiage,” said Takashi. “That’s the gifts you bring to people.” He lifted his chopsticks out of his bowl of udon on the floor and gestured with them. “Hashi.”

“What?” said Keith. 

“Come on, Keith. If you don’t think you have the knowledge already, you might as well learn.” Silence. “You know, a lot of Japanese American kids don’t know this either. This is just like a bonus. Cultural exploration.” 

Keith’s shoulders pulled in, shoulder blades against the back of his shirt turning his frame sharp and angular. He hadn’t gotten a good view of his face for the entire conversation, Keith’s hair falling over his eyes, but there was a tiny shake in his clenched hands.

As gently as he could, Takashi reached for Keith’s shoulder, soft and warm in the afternoon light. He smiled. “C’mon. It can’t hurt to try?”

There was silence for a few more long seconds before it was broken by a long, shaky breath. Keith scowled, looking up, but didn’t make a move to shrug off Takashi’s hand. “Pass me the shoyu,” he said.

 

… 

 

“You up for a ride?” 

Keith answers the door. “Takashi,” he says. “Uh, hell yeah. Can I drive?”

“Do you have your permit?”

Keith fishes it out of his pocket and grins. He looks adorably serious in the photo on it, the plastic shiny and new. Takashi had helped him review for the written driver’s test a few days ago. “Are we going now?”

“Yeah, sure,” says Takashi, already expecting the response, his spare helmet tucked under his arm. 

“Martha, I’m going with Takashi,” Keith calls over his shoulder. 

Mrs. Lawson, also expecting this, just waves. “Have a good time.”

It’s just cooling down outside, the sky pale and grey-lavender behind the trees. Not too humid today, not suffocatingly hot. An ideal summer day, and the high forecasted at a merciful 84 tomorrow. If only he weren’t leaving so soon.

Keith makes his way to Takashi’s bike with all the excitement it’s appropriate for a fifteen year old to show, jamming the helmet over his head. “Where are we going?”

“I thought the store,” says Takashi. “Asian market. And then a surprise.”

“Okay,” says Keith slowly, in a way that half-implies he thinks he’s too old for surprises but trying to hide it. Takashi appreciates that he’s trying to hide it, at least. 

The ride there is short and quiet. Keith’s gotten better at driving, even more than he had naturally been when Takashi had started teaching him. He had a feel for mechanics—familiarity with the controls, how the machine would react, something to do as much with instinct as it had to do with years of watching cars and motorcycles. He feels about as safe as he could, realistically, behind someone who had just gotten his permit and had less than three months of driving experience.

“What are we getting?” Keith asks, as they pull into the parking lot of the supermarket. “Stuff for you? You’re leaving tomorrow.”

He says ‘leaving’ a little too casually. _Me too,_ Takashi thinks. 

“Well, stuff for my mom,” he says. “And some snacks. I feel like you can’t stargaze properly without snacks.”

“We’re going stargazing?” Keith laughs. “Not like you’re going to be seeing stars at all for the next year.”

“It’s nostalgic,” Takashi protests, feeling the cold whoosh of air as they walk past the automatic sliding doors. “I’m trying to share part of my childhood with you.”

“Hm,” is the only thing Keith says, falling silent without a comeback for once. “Okay.”

They wander the store separately for a few minutes, Takashi getting groceries, Keith studying the packages and trying to pick out characters of hiragana. It’s hilariously appropriate that they find each other again in the frozen foods section. _Bet this is what dumplings look like on Kerberos,_ Takashi thinks.

“Hey, Keith.” He stands in the frosty exhale of the frozen foods case and studies the ice crystals on the packages of bao with a unique focus that comes with grocery shopping at night. “You want cha siu?”

“Is it like the white kind?” Keith asks from a little ways down the aisle. “Last time you got the baked kind and it wasn’t the same.”

“Yeah, sure, the white kind.” Takashi grabs a bag off the shelf and drops it into the basket, the added weight making the handle press uncomfortably in the crook of his elbow. The smell of fish intensifies the further he walks down the aisle and he wrinkles his nose. “Are you gonna get dumplings or not? They’re closing in like half and hour.”

Keith opens the door of the case and pulls out a package seemingly at random. “Do we have time to get… uh…” He sweeps a hand through his hair frustratedly. “You literally said the word five minutes ago. Squid.”

“Ika?”

“Yeah.”

Takashi checks his watch. “Sure. I mean, they haven’t made any announcements yet.”

They walk down the aisles together until they reach the snack section. Keith carefully selects a package and puts it in the basket. “Weren’t you going to get—“

“You want anything else?” 

Keith gives him a look, so Takashi starts pulling boxes off the shelf to emphasize. “We’re going stargazing, we need sustenance.” 

Keith gives him a different look, a little barely-there sideways smile, and helps him pile the basket with junk food. Takashi looks at the candy colored-boxes and a funny, achy feeling curls in his chest. They can't allow him to take his and Keith’s favorite snacks to space.

The lady at the checkout has powder blue gloves that match the color of his shirt—he wonders what that says about his fashion sense. They tie the grocery bags and hook them onto the mirrors of the bike, and Takashi drives them up to the park in the quickly-growing night. It’s cooler now, and the wind as they drive along makes him shiver. It makes him think of Kerberos. Everything makes him think of Kerberos, now. 

“Is it far?” asks Keith, voice raised over the wind. “Martha said I have to be back before eleven.”

Takashi finds it funny that Keith only started caring about curfew when he realized Takashi wouldn’t be there to enforce it anymore. “Five more minutes,” he says. “And a little walk.”

They stop in the quiet parking lot along the edge of the hills that overlook the lake of their local park. Takashi hauls the grocery bags onto his arm and they make the trek to the top, where the dusk has turned into a beautiful cloudless night. There’s a faint breeze swaying the tops of the trees, and an endless expanse of stars above them, unusually bright through the light pollution. 

“Look at the lake,” Keith says. “It looks like a mirror.”

“Pretty good spot, right?”

He could be imagining it, but it seems like the stars are reflected in Keith’s dark eyes. They look like tiny galaxies.

 

The snacks are long gone by the time it hits ten o’clock. They’re both stretched out on their backs on the grass in the night dew, the sky as clear and bright and open as it ever was. Takashi kind of wishes he had brought his telescope.

“You see the big dipper, right?” Takashi traces between the stars with his finger. “I think that’s the easiest one to identify.” He has to look over to see Keith nod beside him, his expression pensive.

“You’re going to be up there tomorrow.”

Takashi smiles. “Yeah.” He hesitates. “You gonna be okay?” He doesn’t say ‘without me’. He thinks Keith might take it the wrong way.

“Obviously,” says Keith. 

“Sig figs for chemistry.”

“I know,” says Keith, fondly exasperated. “Like you haven’t reminded me fifty million times already.”

“But seriously,” he says, “there’s video chat once we reach a certain point. And text. Text me, okay?”

“Okay, _niichan_ ,” says Keith sarcastically, smiling. “I’ll text you with all my chemistry problems.”

Takashi smiles at the nickname, and, if he's being honest, feels something like warm tears at the back of his eyes.“You’d better.”

“I’ll make you do my homework for me,” says Keith, right as Takashi says, “and text me about the whole Asian thing, okay?”

Keith falls silent, the smile falling from his face. “Yeah. I will.”

“Hey,” says Takashi. He digs around in his pocket, pressing keys into Keith’s hand. “Here’s the surprise.”

Keith squints at the keys in the starlight, his eyes widening once he sees the keychain. “These are your bike keys.”

“They are.”

“But— they’re your bike keys.”

“Yeah, they are,” says Takashi, grinning, “didn’t you hear me the first time?”

“Takashi, no way,” breathes Keith. “No way, no way— no— what— !” 

“All yours,” says Takashi, “for at least as long as I’m gone. And honestly probably when I come back, too. Be safe, okay? Wear your helmet.”

“No way, Takashi,” says Keith, and before he knows it he’s being hugged, tight, all of Keith’s fiery warmth wrapped around him in strong, skinny arms. He laughs and hugs him back, hard, seeing the starry lake over Keith’s shoulder, and suddenly he’s holding back tears as Keith whispers “No way, no way,” into his shoulder. 

“Yes way,” he says, shakily. God, he’s going to miss Keith. He’s gonna miss this kid. 

That’s when it hits him, the amount of love he has for the people and places and things on Earth. He loves them so much. He loves the lake, the cool night wind, the grass. He loves his house and his room and eating snacks with Keith and going out with the Holts. He loves his family. He loves Keith.

And he loves the stars. It’s not that he doesn’t want to go to space, it’s that he’ll miss Earth so much that he doesn’t want to leave it behind for anything. Even his dream.

“Thanks, Takashi,” says Keith into his shoulder. Takashi hugs him tighter.

 

…

 

He feels more settled at the controls than he thought he would be, comfortable with his hand wrapped around the throttles just like they had been at the Garrison. Matt is fiddling with the settings for the exercise machines, buzzing with excitement. Takashi feels kind of like that too, buzzing. There’s warm, happy bubbles all up and down his chest. He’s here. 

Keith had hugged him again before he had left, he had driven his motorcycle all the way to the launch site. “Don’t—“ he had said, but never finished. Takashi wonders if it was ‘don’t worry about me’. That’s funny. He’s going to worry no matter what Keith does.

But space. God, he loves space.

He opens up the ship’s text messaging screen and taps out a message with his right hand, keeping one eye on the window. Behind him, the earth is a vivid blue-green marble, swathed in clouds.

> love you bro

> have fun while i’m gone

> i put a pack of arare in the spare bike helmet for you

He sees Keith typing for several minutes in his peripheral vision, starting and stopping several times, before his reply comes.

> thanks

> love you too

Takashi smiles.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> im not dead lol just fighting through a fuckton of writers block!! long time no see ily all. find me at kousea dot tumblr dot com if you wanna chat, esp about broganes!


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